SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Hoddinott, Bruch, Nielsen:  Matthew Trusler (violin), BBC National Orchestra of Wales / John Storgårds (conductor), BBC Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff, 12.5.2010 (GPu)

Hoddinott, Symphony No.10

Bruch, Violin Concerto No.1

Nielsen, Symphony No.4, ‘The inextinguishable’


The late Alun Hoddinott was a famously generous host. I recently heard tell that one his specialist offerings took the form of a potent cocktail incorporating a lump of sugar, angostura bitters and copious draughts of champagne and brandy. His tenth – and last – symphony has a good deal of concentrated potency too. The comparison might, however, be with a very good dry white wine rather than a rich cocktail, given its crispness, subtlety of effect and economy of means. Written in 1999, this final symphony is by no means as expansive as some of Hoddinott’s music, and its four movements (the whole lasts some 26 minutes or so) are essentially classical in disposition – though not so much so in terms of their inner construction, where the use of thematic cells perhaps owes more to the example of the baroque than to the Vienna of Haydn and Mozart. The opening moderato is a deeply thoughtful piece, full of small-scale instrumental dialogues, sometimes between soloists, sometimes between groups of instruments; under the baton of John Storgårds, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales produced some strikingly transparent shifting textures, in a performance that brought out an almost reverential quality in the music and which sounded particularly fine in the relatively intimate surroundings of the Hoddinott Hall. By contrast the ensuing presto was intensely dynamic, with the violins prominent, some piquant harmonies accompanied by percussive accents that packed a real punch (like those cocktails, I dare say). The opening of the adagio which forms the third movement had a quasi-pastoral quality at its opening and remained essentially lyrical in nature, though growing emotionally more complex, its initially translucent waters becoming more troubled, amidst some lovely writing for woodwinds and brass. The closing allegro elicited some fine ensemble work from the orchestra, full of energetic and vivacious fragments and imbued with an energy which was predominantly exhilarating, but was not wholly without an edge of menace. A fine performance of an interesting piece – a vindication of the Orchestra’s policy of making judicious returns to works commissioned in earlier years.

The concerto originally scheduled for this concert was to have been the fifth of Henri Vieuxtemps (the one that makes use of a theme by Grétry), with Tai Murray as soloist. But ash-related flight problems kept Murray in New York; another young and highly accomplished British violinist, Matthew Trussler, stepped in at short notice and chose to play Bruch’s most famous concerto, the first in G minor. We were treated to an expressive performance, in which one was struck both by the certainty of Trussler’s technique and the lovely sounds he elicited from his 1711 Stradivarius. The slow movement, that central adagio which is the cornerstone of the concerto, was played with unmannered dignity, its themes well-phrased and the melodic lines relished without excessive sentimentality; in the final movement the passage of quadruple-stopping was (quite literally) well handled, and there was plenty of quasi-gipsy energy to be heard, in the playing of soloist and orchestra alike.

After the interval we entered a very different world, in Nielsen’s Fourth Symphony. For all the quasi-philosophical associations of this work, as in its composer’s prefatory note to the effect that he had sought to express “the elemental will of Life”, the most pertinent fact is perhaps that it was begun in 1914 and completed in 1916, in the midst of World War. In a letter written during work on the symphony, Nielsen wrote “I have an idea for a duel between two sets of timpani; it has to do with the war”. There was a personal dimension too. 1914 saw the beginning of eight years separation from his wife, the sculptor Anne-Marie Brodersen, in large part because of Nielsen’s repeated infidelities. This Fourth Symphony is a work steeped in conflict, but the conflict articulated is far from being ‘purely’ philosophical; this is not essentially a musical treatise on Bergsonian lines; rather it communicates a battle for survival, a determination to endure the threat of destruction and emerge on the other side. It is the music of crisis (crises) and expresses a response to the experience. From the very first notes John Storgårds inspired confidence as an interpreter of the work; the manner in which the opening ‘contest’ of strings and woodwinds was handled, the sense of violence strong but as yet threat as much as reality, was immediately very sure in touch. The rest of the movement continued one’s initially favourable impression, as the clarinet theme and the almost bird-like notes of the flutes were heard in the context of some driving, fiercely accented rhythms. A dream-like second movement seemed just that – an impossible dream of escape from turbulence, in which the woodwind section played with subtlety and beauty (the solo flute of Ahran Kim being heard to particularly exquisite effect), not so much reassuring, or a pledge of future possibilities, as merely escapist. The dark textures of the third movement, full of aggressive grandeur, a sense of pain never very far away, brought out the best in conductor and orchestra, the large orchestral sound balanced by some poignant moments of relative stillness and approaches (at least) to serenity, before a glowing conclusion whose affirmations, for all their insistence, seemed necessarily only provisional. This was an account of the symphony which went a long way towards recognising its ambiguities and self-contradictions. Political, personal, intellectual dimensions aside, there is in the musical language of Nielsen’s symphony a level of suggestion which, at times, seems almost cosmic, as though the movement of the planets, the vastness of space, is evoked to put human conflicts (and explanations) in some sort of perspective. Robert Simpson famously spoke of the opening of the whole work in such terms: “the music hurls the listener into the heart of a flaming nebula”. That sense of order and chaos interacting on a huge scale underpins the remarkable last movement too, here played with immense commitment and fierce energy (as well as remarkable precision, not least by timpanists Steve Barnard and Matthew Hardy). This time the closing affirmation held more promise of endurance – but perhaps, one might add, more for what it said about the enduring order of the universe, of life’s transcendent power of continuity, rather than for what it said about the specifically human. This was an exciting, passionate reading of the symphony. This was the first time I had heard John Storgårds conduct live – it will surely be no surprise if the BBC National Orchestra of Wales invites him to pay a return visit.

Glyn Pursglove